Then and now

As I mentioned in yesterday's post I am about to disappear into my summer week-chock-full-o'-meetings at a conference here in Albuquerque. But before I did I wanted to at least finish the posting I began work on yesterday.

A key part of this is a map of Midland, dated 1967, that has been in my last MHS yearbook for decades. (Somehow it's become a little bit of a time capsule including such unrelated things such as my U.C. Santa Barbara student ID --and yes, I had the beard then too, but that's a story unrelated to this blog.) That map has been something of a reference for Midland, though it inevitably has become well out of date. How much, I began to see when looking at the Google Maps satellite photos.


This is the reference for this posting. Examining it more closely I realized this map is actually older than 1967 -- it doesn't show the extensions to Central Intermediate that included the cafeteria and I have forgotten else. It has to be older than 1964. It also shows the poolhouse in Central Park, now gone. And I don't know what the dot below Ashman Circle is. Nevertheless, this is Midland in the 60s.


So imagine my surprise then I looked at this map/photo. I'd already been told by one of the Midlanders I've met here in the Seattle area that Ashman Circle had changed completely, and it has. It used to be a sort of park in the middle of the circle. In winter the fire department would create (memory says) a sort of crude ice "sculpture" or fountain, and I think with colored lights shining on it. I am betting they aren't doing that now, with that circle carved into through streets.

But the other surprise is that court in the lower left. It would seem the nursery that used to be there is long gone.


But the biggest surprise is to the east of the (now clearly larger) Community Center. There's a ring of buildings in what I recall used to be a residential area. Not sure what it is, but I am guessing it's a medical center of some sort.

So, with that, I am turning my focus to work for the coming week. I will post more if I can in the interim.